Themes and Variations/Fishing
FISHING.
A downy-breasted sky, a muffled sun,
A polished sea, blue as the hyacinth spray
When spring winds smooth its buds out, one by one,
And lift the winging swallow on her way.
There’s not a crease on all the azure sheet,
No rounding breaker stirs the seaweed hair,
Even the thistle-down’s adventurous fleet
Would fear to launch upon the dozing air.
And lulled by tides that scarcely lift her prow,
Our boat sits like a nest on summer bough.
A polished sea, blue as the hyacinth spray
When spring winds smooth its buds out, one by one,
And lift the winging swallow on her way.
There’s not a crease on all the azure sheet,
No rounding breaker stirs the seaweed hair,
Even the thistle-down’s adventurous fleet
Would fear to launch upon the dozing air.
And lulled by tides that scarcely lift her prow,
Our boat sits like a nest on summer bough.
And near me, all in summer-white arrayed,
The delicate fabric of an Indian loom
(Threaded by dusky fingers, in the shade
Of tropic branches’ scarlet-shaken bloom),—
My lady dreams; her fingers hardly feel
The line that slackens on the idle reel,
Where waves of quivering network, veined with light,
Are greener than the woods in summer height,
Whose fringe of foam that flutters on the sand,
Is white as daisy milk on pasture-land.
Whose song is softer than the tales of sleep,
The immeasurable language of the deep.
The delicate fabric of an Indian loom
(Threaded by dusky fingers, in the shade
Of tropic branches’ scarlet-shaken bloom),—
My lady dreams; her fingers hardly feel
The line that slackens on the idle reel,
Where waves of quivering network, veined with light,
Are greener than the woods in summer height,
Whose fringe of foam that flutters on the sand,
Is white as daisy milk on pasture-land.
Whose song is softer than the tales of sleep,
The immeasurable language of the deep.
A face of sunshine and a brow of shade!
Brown eyes that seem to question and entreat,
Hair, half of gold and half of hazel made,
An accent like the streamlet, wild and sweet.
Are these the tokens of as fair a mind?
The manifest and expression of the soul?
Or are they but a portrait, mutely kind,
Unanswering beauty of the painter’s scroll?
I cannot guess; but sweet it is to glide,
Dreaming beside her, on this dreaming tide.
Brown eyes that seem to question and entreat,
Hair, half of gold and half of hazel made,
An accent like the streamlet, wild and sweet.
Are these the tokens of as fair a mind?
The manifest and expression of the soul?
Or are they but a portrait, mutely kind,
Unanswering beauty of the painter’s scroll?
I cannot guess; but sweet it is to glide,
Dreaming beside her, on this dreaming tide.
But now the very clouds are standing still;
The sea-gulls scream and balance in the strait,
And flash above the purple-pillared hill
That guards our harbour’s narrow rocky gate.
And there the iron-shod ocean messenger,
Over the shadowy meadows of the bay
Slips like a stag; and from her forebead clear
As hawthorn blossoms in an English May,
Scatters the spimning fountains of the spray.
We must go home; the wave sings drowsily,
If I should speak, what would her answer be?
The sea-gulls scream and balance in the strait,
And flash above the purple-pillared hill
That guards our harbour’s narrow rocky gate.
And there the iron-shod ocean messenger,
Over the shadowy meadows of the bay
Slips like a stag; and from her forebead clear
As hawthorn blossoms in an English May,
Scatters the spimning fountains of the spray.
We must go home; the wave sings drowsily,
If I should speak, what would her answer be?